When attempting to implement a content strategy, brands often encounter a vexing problem. They’ve got too much “stuff” across too many channels, without a full sense of why it’s there or how it got there. The number of players involved in the creation of this unruly content often compounds the problem. In some cases, brands retain separate agencies to create television ads, display ads, and YouTube videos (and Vine, of course); social teams post to Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram; others update websites, blogs, and microsites; and still others create product brochures and issue news releases.
When a brand’s content-creation wheels are furiously spinning like this, a content strategist and her toolbox—audits, gap analyses, competitive assessments, editorial calendars, pleas for governance—cannot easily undo what has already been set in motion.
Sometimes a strategist will find that the content wheels are working—well oiled, aligned content that moves users smoothly along the consumer pathway. But more often than not, the wheels fail to move in unison as part of a larger, defined brand strategy. One-off projects, short-lived campaigns, and diffuse, often conflicting voices operate independently across channels. And as we’ve seen, these varied voices can inflict lasting damage to a brand. Without an authentic guiding voice speaking on behalf of the brand and its customer’s interests – as the Lorax does on behalf of the trees – the content runs the risk of “biggering and biggering”, with no end or reason in sight.
This lack of coordination often stems from larger organizational issues:
- Silos, politics & power grabs
- Outdated technology
- Lack of planning, discipline, or vision
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KOAETOdo2c0?feature=player_detailpage]
How bad can your content possibly be?
Enter Your Brand Magazine
Despite these challenges, mapping out a coherent content strategy is an important step to rein in your content. An effective strategy should answer a few basic questions and establish a few basic guidelines:
- Where and when do want our content to show up?
- Where don’t we want our content to show up?
- What about our content differentiates it from our competitors’ content?
- What will be unique and compelling about it?
- How will our content exemplify our brand and core values while still being relevant (entertaining, useful, instructive) to our customers?
To answer these questions, try the following five-step exercise to get closer to your content strategy:
1. START WITH A BLANK SLATE – Pretend you sell a commodity product and you’ve never created content to support your brand. You might want to pretend you are selling soda water instead of your actual brand. Drop any pre-conceived notions.
2. BECOME A MAGAZINE PUBLISHER – Create a hypothetical magazine with your brand mission as its overarching theme. (Note: if you don’t have a brand mission or purpose then you aren’t ready to create a content strategy). Come up with a name for it. Yes, the name should relate to your brand mission at least tangentially or via a meta-brand concept (Think “The Most Interesting Man in the World” meme, which has arguably become the meta-brand for Dos Equis).
3. ESTABLISH AN EDITORIAL DIRECTION – Inject your brand’s voice and personality into your hypothetical magazine. Make the following determinations: What types of images will you publish? What type of videos will you publish? What type of infographics? Articles? Special features? Who would advertise in this magazine? What type of guest columnists would you hire to write for it? To do this right, consider pulling in your visual designers, UX team, planners, writers, and other creative types to help explore and unearth the answers.
4. PLAN YOUR PUBLICATION CYCLE – Identify the topics you want to cover in your first issue. The magazine should start feeling like your brand. Once it feels right, schedule a release cycle. If you are really ambitious begin planning subsequent issues. Think about how you might create a pace and flow to your releases—how you might update it daily, monthly, and annually (with special issues).
5. UNVEIL YOUR FIRST ISSUE – Congratulations, you just published a magazine. Pop the cork, do the Dougie, and shake what your mama gave you.
You can now return to the real world! You are no longer in charge of a publishing empire. But you have a new tool in your arsenal. Use what you’ve learned about creating a magazine to assess your current content and use it as guidepost for planning future content. Ask yourself: would your existing content make the cut in your new magazine? Would your agencies be able to use your magazine as reference point for how they talk about and present your brand to the public? If you’re answering no to either of those questions, it’s probably time to move from considering a content strategy to advocating for one.
